


This old world is rough

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-20
Updated: 2009-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during 5x02. In the middle of a war, Dean and Ellen find some comfort in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This old world is rough

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Missing scene for 5x02. Title from Bruce Springsteen. Thank you to musesfool for the beta.

"We already burned the others," Ellen says.

The tight nod Dean gives her is for the battlefield, and approval that she did the right thing. He meets her eyes for a second and she also gets his unspoken _sorry_. Not because she lost any of her own -- they weren't hers -- but they were lost on her watch, and she knows Dean's been there.

The priest and the two boys from the store lie side by side on the grass in front of the house. Sam stays apart, over by the pine tree, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The kid keeps his gaze down, or out towards the mountains that rise beyond the rooftops, anywhere but on the bodies. Ellen can't get over how different he seems from the last time she laid eyes on him, it's not just how he's filled out and gotten taller (if that was even possible), it's the way he's more watchful, lines of his face etched too deep for someone his age.

Sam wouldn't touch the bodies from the store -- it's Ellen and Dean who dragged them out.

Rufus and Jo appear, walking down the middle of the street, each of them with their arms full of bed sheets, their shadows twinning along the ground. Jo's looks way too small. Or it's Jo who looks too small, next to Rufus.

They wrap the bodies, borrow a pick-up truck to bring them out to the field at the edge of town, and burn them. The smell of it is in Ellen's nose, smoke rising towards the crisp blue sky, and through it she sees the Winchesters standing side by side with about three feet of space between them. There always seems to be about three feet of space between them now, while she remembers them always with their shoulders practically touching, and they don't look at each other much.

Jo keeps Rufus between her and Sam and Dean. Earlier, she and Sam exchanged quick, apologetic nods, and when Dean smiled at Jo, she smiled a brittle smile back, then turned away to pack away the guns into her duffel bag.

It's as if they're seeds of milkweed, all flying farther apart. The wind shifts, twisting the smoke in a new direction. Ellen reached out, grabs Jo's hand, and Jo queezes back.

* * *

The church basement is still and quiet, the scent of food lingering. Ellen finds a trash bag and starts gathering up the empty cups and wrappers that litter the tables. Jo's already collected any weapons, but there's a discarded jacket here, a sweater there (the owners are probably dead), spilled salt, about half a dozen plastic bottles full of holy water. The holy water she puts into another bag; she'll divvy them up between the Winchesters and Rufus and Jo.

There's a bottle of whiskey on the table, a few glasses, and Ellen thinks of Roger. Bill used to say he regretted the loss of what things seemed to be. The world could use another Roger -- who Roger seemed to be -- in it, and instead there was no Roger, there never was a Roger. And now there's no longer any Pete, Chris, Mike, Julie, Susan, Rich, Eric, Julian, or Father Williams either.

As she picks up the glasses with her fingers, two in each hand, a jab of homesickness hits her, the smell of the whiskey bringing with it the memory of old wood and the sound of a jukebox and a videogame mingled with the low voices or loud laughter of hunters.

Damn it. It's gone. It's gone, and she doesn't know why it keeps hitting her like this, it's been years. This is her life now, the smell of smoke from burning bodies seeped into her clothes.

There's a sound, a light knock. She looks up.

"Hey," Dean says. He leans against the propped-open door.

Ellen clears her throat. "Hey yourself."

He nods at the trash bags. "You want some help?"

"No, I got it." She carries the glasses to the kitchen at the back of the room and starts washing up.

Dean follows her anyway. She hands the glasses to Dean, who catches them in a towel and dries them, easy flick of his hands like he's worked in a bar his entire life. For a moment he reminds her of Bill. She shuts the thought down and turns off the tap while Dean places the glasses face down on the counter.

"So this is it, huh?" Ellen turns off the tap. She dries her hands on the edges of the towel Dean's holding, and finds herself staring at the small cuts on his hands, the calluses on his fingers. Her gaze snaps up to his face. " _The_ apocalypse."

"Birds and snakes and airplanes," Dean says, with a wry twist to his mouth. Dean balls up the towel and tosses it so it lands next to the glasses.

There's something missing from him, but Ellen can't place it yet. She picks up two of the glasses. "Want a drink?"

He nods and they sit next to each other at the long folding table, which still has the cheerful vinyl cover on it. Ellen pours them each three fingers of whiskey. Dean tugs a third chair closer and props one booted foot up on it. He drinks, head tilting back. There's a streak of sweat and dust on his throat.

With Dean, she's learned not to ask. He'll either tell you, or he'll bite your head off for asking, but tough shit, she's worried about them. "Sam says it's the stresses of the job, what's between the two of you right now." Ellen takes a swallow of the whiskey, lets the burn sink down through her. "It's more than that, isn't it?"

It's a long time before Dean answers, and then she expects him to say something flip, give her the kind of grin that always makes her want to punch him.

"Kind of," he says, looking right at her for a second before he looks down at the glass, rotating it in his fingers. "Yeah. I don't..." Dean lowers his foot carefully to the floor, leans forward and bows his head. "I don't know if we're okay."

With his head down like that, back of his neck exposed, Ellen figures out what's been nagging at her -- the amulet's gone. She wonders why Dean took it off, but that's the least of what's different about him.

She stares at the short hairs on the back of his neck, his shoulders, and Jesus Christ, this is _John's kid_ and he's young enough to be her son. Doesn't matter how old his eyes look.

Dean raises his head, sees her watching, and she folds her arms across her chest as his gaze tracks over her. He knocks back the rest of his whiskey and puts the glass on the table as he licks his lower lip.

Neither of them moves first; or maybe Ellen does. His body leans suddenly in her direction while her fingers grab a handful of his jacket, pulling him closer until her mouth is on his. Dean makes a small noise in his throat, a mix of _what?_ and _hell, yeah_ , before his tongue slides into her mouth, his hands moving up to hold the back of her head.

Ellen lets go of Dean's jacket and presses her palms down against his thighs, frayed, exposed denim threads beneath her fingers, still kissing him. He tastes like whiskey. His hands go down to her hips, before she feels him lift her up until she's got her ass on the table. Ellen shoves aside the few things she hadn't thrown away yet, hears the clink of a bottle falling to the floor.

This is so not a good idea, Dean Winchester's hips caught between her thighs, him pushing up against her with his hand in the small of her back to draw her close. Ellen can't seem to figure out where to put her hands, finally puts her palms against his chest but maybe she pushed at him without realizing it because he stops and draws back.

"Uh," he says. "You sure about this?"

No, she's not, but this won't be the most wrong thing Ellen's ever done in her life. "Don't move," she says, and hurries over to the door, kicks away the stopper, and lets it shut. When she gets back to Dean, he looks amused. "Shut up," she says. "Just shut up," and then she kisses him again, pulling the sleeves of his jacket down.

Dean shrugs out of the jacket fast, while she pulls off hers. His hands go up under her shirt, warm against her skin. In for a penny, in for a pound; Ellen crosses her arms and pulls her shirt up over her head. It gets caught on her hair, natch, and she feels Dean tugging at it, freeing her.

When she can see again, he's grinning that way at her, looking far too pleased about the entire situation, the smug bastard (and he looks like John, with the shape of his jaw and his hands and a mouth that should be registered as a deadly weapon, not just for what it does but for some of the things it says). Before she can think up something to say to take the edge off his grin, he's pushing her back, hands on her hips, until she's half-lying on the table. Dean's lips brush over her stomach, making her muscles jump, then slide up until his teeth and mouth are teasing at her breast through the fabric of her bra.

It's a little chilly in the church basement, and goosebumps rise along her arms, but not just from the cold. Ellen sits up and trails her fingers along his chest, under his t-shirt. It surprises her to find so much smooth skin on a hunter like him. When her fingers move farther upwards, finding the ridge of a scar at his shoulder, he tenses, and she moves her hands down.

She unbuttons and unzips Dean's jeans, pulls them partway down along with his briefs, and starts to stroke him.

"Fuck, Ellen," Dean mutters with his mouth against her skin.

"That's the idea," she says.

He unbuttons her jeans, and she wriggles out of them. She shivers a little with her legs bare until he pulls her against him, his body heat warming her. Ellen presses her mouth against his neck, licks to taste the sweat and hint of smoke and dust. He slides two fingers into her, stroking her clit with his thumb until she shudders, her fingers gripping his biceps.

Dean pauses to find a condom in his wallet, and it takes them a moment to position things just right, the table a little too hard beneath her (she's maybe getting too old to be doing it on tables. Maybe.) She tugs down her panties, braces herself with one palm flat against the table as he pushes up into her.

They find a rhythm, Dean holding her with his fingers digging into the flesh around her hips. She arches, her head thrown back, his hands keeping her in place as the burst of heat and pleasure sweeps through her, driving out everything, the end of days, her terror that Jo is going to die bloody, everything she's lost. Ellen lets out a low, drawn-out cry, then feels Dean shudder as he comes, pushed deep inside of her with his breath hot on her face. She kisses him hard, feeling herself still pulsing around him as he slumps a little in her arms.

It takes a few moments for their breathing to slow. She leans her forehead against his, and he pushes the hair back from her face before he grins, not smug this time, just contented.

"I guess we should..."

"Yep," she says.

They gather up their clothes, get dressed quickly. The light from the basement's high windows hasn't changed much, but someone might wonder where they are.

Before Dean leaves her, he stops and turns back. She sees him swallow, like he's looking for words and can't figure out what he wanted to say. Ellen puts her palm soft against the side of his face.

Then he opens the door, leaving it propped open again. She hears his footsteps going up the stairs.

Ellen puts her fingers to her mouth a moment, then shoves her hands through her hair, smoothing it into place before she goes back to clearing way the remains of the days of siege.

~end


End file.
